Nicholas Britell’s score for If Beale Street Could Talk conjures up a parallel world, where memories, hopes, and fears meld together, floating like some great overwhelming cloud. Much of the film lives in the memories of its main character, Tish. […]
Independent film is one of the great breeding grounds for new film composers. Consider Hans Zimmer, for example, who started his career scoring direct-to-video films before eventually securing eleven Academy Award nominations. While these films don’t offer the same monetary […]
Paul Rudd’s son had the same reaction to the announcement of Ant-Man as many of us unfamiliar with Marvel’s less popular characters: “I can’t wait to see how stupid that’ll be.” On paper, the sentiment isn’t wrong. Ant-Man controls an […]
Clint Mansell adds cacophonous noise and jarring sounds to beautiful, classical melodies that slowly degrade as Black Swan progresses. This degradation directly mirrors the protagonist’s own descent into insanity. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is obviously thematically appropriate. However, it is too […]
Outside of Japan, Godzilla is somewhat of a joke. This is largely due to the historical relevance missing from every other country: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and, more recently, Fukushima. Shin Godzilla is perhaps the most realistic, agonizing version of this nuclear […]
Despair rises up gradually, then suddenly, like the arms of a vice slowly closing in until, all at once, they crush everything in their grip. Lustmord’s score for First Reformed works in largely the same way. Much of the film […]
While Macbeth has undergone many iterations, Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film is the rare version that emphasizes the daunting nature of the Scottish landscape. Jed Kurzel’s score tries to bring this landscape to life and, in doing so, creates a particularly […]
300,000 soldiers trapped on the shores of Dunkirk. A rescue fleet comes from the north; Nazis from everywhere else. The soldiers know this. They also know that they have no say in whether they live or die. They can only […]
Bone Tomahawk quickly rose to notoriety due to the overwhelmingly graphic, brutal nature of one particular scene. But, despite the fame of this scene, it’s not representative of the movie. Violence is rare and ends quickly. Instead, the majority of […]
In 2011, Cliff Martinez helped popularize the 80s synth and electropop revivalist subgenres through his work on Drive. While this remains his most popular work, Only God Forgives is perhaps his strongest score to date. It fuses elements from Drive, […]
In the 17th century, a group of soldiers and their academic hostage eat psychedelic mushrooms in A Field in England. In so doing, they’re convinced that they’ve uncovered the powers of divination, becoming enspelled in the process. Jim Williams uses […]
Pick any year from the 2010s and you’ll find a dozen (or more) synth/electronic driven film scores. These scores tend to feel familiar and rely on the same tropes because they share the same influences. Disasterpeace’s It Follows takes these […]